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Beef En Miroton

A beef stew with onions, butter, flour, broth, wine, mustard or vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef En Miroton

Ingredients

Directions

Make the onion sauce

  1. Slice a few onions.

  2. Fry the onions with a piece of butter and a little flour until they are a fine brown color.

  3. Add a little broth and the white wine, then stew until the onions are well done.

Finish and serve

  1. Add boiled beef cut into small thin slices.

  2. Stew until the beef is well flavored with onion.

  3. Flavor with mustard or a dash of vinegar, and serve.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + white winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,535 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Onions
Soften and turn sweet and brown, forming the flavour base of the dish.
Butter
Fat that carries the onions to a rich, golden browning.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light sauce and helps the onions brown.
Broth
Liquid that stews the onions and beef into a moist, savoury sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the stewed onion sauce.
Boiled beef
Main protein, which absorbs the onion sauce as it stews.

The step that matters

Browning the onions in butter and flour. Onions must reach a fine brown, not burnt, because browned sugars and Maillard reactions create the dish's depth. Flour added with the butter also helps it take on colour and begins thickening the sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, white wine, beef):

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, white wine, beef. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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